


Foreground

by levendis



Series: Prompt Fics [39]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: Dom/sub, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Fluff, Non-Sexual Bondage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-14
Updated: 2015-12-14
Packaged: 2018-05-06 15:00:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 641
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5421389
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/levendis/pseuds/levendis
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Doctor and Clara relax after a long day.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Foreground

**Author's Note:**

> for capalxii, who requested: happy tied up sub!12, happy doing-the-tying-up dom!Clara

Clara gets anxious, and the Doctor knows he does too. Nervous energy, or some existential worry. They pace, they snap, they try to slam automatic sliding doors. The dirt of the day on their shoulders, the monsters at their heels.

Her monster looks so very much like his. He would take it, if he could, take it from her and keep it at bay for them both. That’s not how it works, though, and she’d never let him if it was. He knows what that’s like, as well. There’s a certain pleasure to be had in carrying the weight.

They fight - he hardly ever understands what it is they’re fighting about. Hardly ever stops to ask why, when they get like this. Or stops himself before it’s too late and he’s said something he’ll have to apologize for. He doesn’t know where he comes up with some of this stuff, why certain things come out of his mouth. Even as far as they’ve come, it’s still so easy to be cruel.

Old habits, old dogs and new tricks. He flips through the index cards as she winds herself down, her regret and frustration palpable.

“‘It’s not you, it’s me’,” he recites. Then, off-script: “Today was. Difficult, for both of us. I’m not handling it well. And I need, I want, I…”

“Yeah,” Clara says. “Me too.”

She always _knows._

There’s a room on the TARDIS. Well, hundreds of rooms, rotating on a biweekly basis, but. A particular room. Kept away from the rest of the ship, the rest of their lives. He’s had it for longer than he cares to remember. It’s hers now, though, decorated and furnished and stocked to her specifications. She has exacting specifications.

And there’s a routine. He strips by the entrance, clothing hung up neatly. He waits. Watches her decide what she wants from him, to do to him.

That’s a difference between them: she hasn’t gotten tired of making decisions yet. Part of him wishes she didn’t enjoy taking control, for what it could mean for her in the world outside; you’re always an easy target when you’re in the forefront. More of him, now at least, is just happy to submit. So incredibly grateful that she’s earned his trust. That she will do this for him, that he can ask her to do this for him. He spent long enough locked up inside himself. Now, he opens.

Now he lets her lead him to the bed, press him down to the mattress. Lets her put his arms over his head, spread-eagle, compliant. The slide of the rope over his wrists and ankles, pulling taut against the bedposts, digging into his skin. Nowhere to go but where she asks him to, nothing to do but what she wants. No battles to fight, no wars to win.

Giving in, slipping under. A half-meditative state, someplace slow inside him.

He can feel her stress subsiding with each knot. He can feel her consciousness narrowing in, focusing. The faint rush of having him - and she knows, she knows, she knows what he is, what he is capable of - the rush of having him under her thumb. The comfort, the welcome easy confidence, that everything happening is happening because she wants it to. No battle to fight when the city is surrendered.

She finishes; he exhales. Seconds passing, possibly: he can’t keep track, with his hands tied like this. With his head drifting like this. The warm, slow place inside him. And Clara beside him, settling down in the web she’s woven, one hand trailing over the ropes criss-crossing his chest. She’ll fall asleep like this, and he could too, if he weren’t so determined to keep every second to himself. To preserve this this moment. Her momentum carrying him, pulling him back. The fixed point, the pendulum swinging.


End file.
